Ingrid Maria Karin ‘Inga’ Jacobi was born in 1921 in Poserna near Weissenfels in the province of Saxony. After early childhood in Poland she grew up in Berlin to become a librarian in the Prussian State Library, Unter den Linden. During World War Two she got married to Werner Weinert before his transfer to a naval commando in Greece. Three weeks before the armistice in Europe he perished in an American air raid.
She worked as an interpreter and secretary for three years for the British military administration (UNRRA, IRO) and a group of the Quaker Relief Organisation for the Displaced Persons camps. Re?marriage and immigration to Australia with husband Percy Martinow and Wito, son from her first marriage, followed. Their second son was born in Bathurst. She worked as one of the early school librarians in high schools and secondary colleges until retirement in Melbourne.